PRINCETON BOROUGH — In yet another effort to thwart Princeton University’s plan to turn the Dinky commuter train station into a restaurant, the citizens group Save the Dinky took its case to the Princeton Borough Historic Preservation Review Committee
last night, in hopes of starting the process of having the building declared a historic site.

The long, sometimes contentious meeting was held on the eve of the Princeton planning board review of the university’s proposed $300 million arts and transit project, which calls for the change of the building’s use to commercial. The university’s plan would also move the Dinky’s terminus 460 feet south of its current location.

Members of the citizens group Save the Dinky argued that the building is still in excellent condition, and its historic significance is in part related to that fact. They also argued that the building’s style is representative of the campus’ gothic architecture and mentioned that the station was on both the state and national registers of historic places.

“It’s unique in terms of its platform, but it’s also unique in the fact that it still exists,” Save the Dinky member Kip Cherry said. “It still works and it’s still being used. It’s one of those little gems that our community has and it should be preserved.”

For its part, the university said that while in good shape, nothing about the design of the building was unique enough to call for historical preservation. Architect Michael Mills said that he found much of the group’s report on the station’s historic significance irrelevant and university attorney Richard Goldman said that the station was considered historically significant by the state at a time when “many stations, as long as they were operating, were up for historic designation.”

The meeting lasted long into the night and was ongoing at press time. Much of the gathering was dedicated to figuring out what merit any action by the committee could have, due to a piece of legislation referred to as the “time of application rule.” The law states that, once an application for construction is submitted and deemed complete, no local ordinances can be introduced to change the zoning or land use designation of the area in question.

The application for the university’s project was deemed complete in August, prior to the committee’s consideration of the station building as potentially historic. However, a decision made by the state Historic Sites Council that would effectively allow the university to immediately move the train’s terminus is currently the subject of a lawsuit.

Save the Dinky attorney Bruce Afran suggested that, should the lawsuit overturn that decision, it could be argued legally that the application was not complete, and any historic designation made by the borough could be put back into play.

Still, lawyers on both side of the issue agreed that, should the building eventually be declared historic, that could affect any future construction on the structure.